This invention relates generally to an apparatus for drilling holes for planting trees at a tree farm and, more particularly, to a mobile, portable apparatus for mounting a motorized auger to permit movement within a Christmas tree farm to replace harvested trees while maintaining a grid pattern.
Christmas tree farms consist of fir trees planted on a regular grid pattern, typically on five foot spacings such that each tree is located approximately five feet from each adjacent tree positioned on the orthogonal major axes of the grid pattern. This grid pattern needs to be maintained to facilitate the use of mechanized equipment for maintenance of the grounds, such as mowers and compact tractors. However, once the trees are grown to a harvestable size, the grid pattern spacing does not provide for a large amount of room for maneuvering such mechanized equipment.
For Christmas tree farms operating on the "pick and cut" manner, i.e. customers choose the tree of their choice and have the tree harvested, replacement of the harvested tree becomes difficult due to the remaining unharvested trees that could be immediately adjacent to the stump of the harvested tree. Damage to the yet unharvested tree must be avoided in the re-planting of the seedling to replace the harvested tree. Currently, the generally used method of replacing harvested trees is to drill a hole next to the harvested stump and plant a seedling, so that the five foot spacing of the grid pattern can be maintained to prevent the new seedling from being placed into risk of damage from the maintenance equipment.
Drilling the hole for the replacement seedling typically involves a cutting of the roots of the harvested stump with an implement such as an axe and then using a hand-held motorized auger to drill the hole to the desired depth. The use of the hand-held motorized auger is difficult to control due to the weight of the device and the engagement of the roots of the harvested tree stump during operation. Accordingly, the use of the hand-held motorized auger requires considerable muscular effort and is very tiring to the operator. Furthermore, proper orientation of the drilled hole is difficult to maintain because of the difficult operative nature of the motorized auger.
With the hand-held motorized augers, the tree replacement process is labor intensive and requires substantial effort getting up and down to chop roots, pick-up the hand-held motorized auger, drill the hole, lower the hand-held motorized auger, get down on your knees to plant the replacement seedling, pack dirt around the seedling, and then pick-up all the equipment to move on to the next site. Some motorized auger devices tend to scatter dirt away from the hole being drilled by the auger, resulting in a more difficult effort to pack soil around the replacement seedling to finish the re-planting process.
It would, therefore, be desirable to provide an apparatus to improve the operation of drilling a hole for the replacement of harvested trees, particularly in tree farm operations in which the trees are arranged in a grid pattern and the replacement seedlings are to be planted between more mature, unharvested trees.
Also, it would be desirable to provide an auger mechanism that would improve the operation of a motorized auger to cut through tree roots and minimize the displacement of dirt away from the drilled hole.